Harvesting of Vietnam's robusta coffee crop has been picking up after disruption in the past month due to rains, and farmers said on Tuesday they could complete the process next month. Growers and hired workers were out on the field in Daklak, Vietnam's top growing province, on Tuesday as the sun and winds enabled drying.
Traders said Vietnam has harvested nearly half its crop, which would drop 15 percent to 18.1 million 60-kg bags, according to a US Agriculture Department attache in Hanoi. A grower in Krong Pak district said she was collecting the last beans from her 720-square-metre farm. The district is 30 km (19 miles) east of Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Daklak.
"After three harvesting phases we are finishing it today," said 35-year-old Bui Thu Thuy, a scalf covering all of her face but her eyes, as she stuffed green and red cherries in a bag. "I would wait now for a better price to sell but by late December I will have to sell all the beans at any price as I need to repay my bank loan," said Thuy, who started growing coffee in 1989.
Another farmer in Krong Pak said she should complete her harvest on December 15. On the side of National Road 26 going out of Buon Ma Thuot, carpets of ripe and green cherries covered growers' front yards while more were left on trees that belong to state-run companies.
"These firms keep cherries on trees until they become fully ripe, that's when they will harvest the coffee to ensure good quality," an official at Daklak's Agriculture Department said. The authorities in top grower Daklak and number two Lam Dong province have asked farmers to avoid picking green cherries to improve bean quality, Van Thanh Huy, chairman of the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association, said. Farmers are also advised to dry cherries properly and pick ripe cherries one by one, so that stem would not be mixed with beans and counted as a defect.
"We aim to raise farmers' awareness on the importance of the harvest as the quality of export coffee very much depends on the harvesting steps," Huy said. Farm guards have been established and actively work in Daklak to protect unripe coffee from looters who want to strip trees at night to take advantage of high prices.
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